HOUSE MEMBERS SAY "WE DO" TO GAY MARRIAGE

The vote in the House of Representatives was
historic, but the debate was not. It looked fated, along
with the arguments against legalizing gay marriage here
in Delaware, to be gone with the wind.

For two hours, more in resignation than resistance,
the opposition clung to the world view that marriage is
an institution reserved for one man and one woman, but
the roll call said otherwise.

The House on Tuesday gave the gay marriage
legislation, House Bill 75, a sendoff with two votes to
spare, 23-18, on its way to the Senate, where the tally
for passage appears to be solidifying, although not yet
secure.

The Senate is the last hurdle because Jack Markell,
the Democratic governor who would have to sign the bill
into law, is one of its biggest backers.

The opponents turned to a strange shield in their
stand to preserve marriage as they know it. Civil
unions. They have morphed into champions of civil
unions, two years after they tried mightily to keep them
from coming into existence, as the means to wall off gay
couples from marriage.

"We all have rights under the law. If we need to
redefine some things about marriage for same-sex
couples, I believe we need to do it under civil unions,"
said Tim Dukes, a Republican rookie representative from
Laurel, as well as the pastor of Central Worship Center
in his home town.

The debate raised arguments that were thought to be
settled decades and decades ago.

The opponents feared for the "right of conscience"
for the likes of wedding photographers, florists and
caterers who object to gay marriage, an echo of the old
defense that restaurants and inns open to the public
should not have to serve black patrons if they were
unwelcome.

It did not seem to matter that Delaware passed a
public accommodations law, guaranteeing access to all,
in 1963.

"Ironically, these people are sticking to their
beliefs, and because the government has imposed this
bill upon them, that they're the ones being
discriminated against," said Bill Carson, a Democratic
representative from Smyrna.

There was even the return of the old
separate-but-equal doctrine, thrown out by the Supreme
Court in the landmark school integration case of
Brown v. Board in 1954.

It was heard in an exchange between Joe Miro, a
Republican representative from Pike Creek Valley, and
Mark Purpura, a lawyer who is an officer of Equality
Delaware, an advocacy group for gay marriage, as Miro
declared that civil unions bestowed an equal, if
separate, status on gay couples.

"They have all the rights that anyone else would
have," Miro said.

"The difference is that people are being treated
unequally, they're being prohibited from marrying,"
Purpura said.

Nothing crystallized the debate better than the plain
eloquence of Harvey Kenton, a Republican representative
from Milford.

"I hear the word 'equality,' but to me it's a moral
issue, it's how I was raised," Kenton said.

The vote in the House, where the Democrats outnumber
the Republicans by 27-14, broke largely along party
lines.

Mike Ramone, a Republican from Pike Creek Valley, was
the only one from his party to vote "yes," while Carson
was one of five Democrats to vote "no," along with John
Atkins from Millsboro, Earl Jaques from Glasgow, Trey
Paradee from Clayton and Charles Potter Jr. from
Wilmington.

There was also a heavy geographical influence on the
vote in a state where the farther south it goes, the
more conservative it seems to get. The lone "yes" vote
below Dover was cast by Pete Schwartzkopf, the
Democratic speaker who represents gay-friendly Rehoboth
Beach.

It was a vote that seemed to double back on itself.
The people who fought so hard for civil unions are
trying just as hard to make them obsolete.